Abstract

Since September 11, 2001, the social imaginaries on terrorism have changed. We propose that from 9/11 onwards, the discussion about terrorism has evolved considerably. In this investigation, we shall try to discover the social imaginaries on terrorism that ushered in the 21 st Century from 9/11 to March 11 th , 2004 (the attacks in Madrid); that's to say, how the discussion about terrorism changed from 11 th September, 2001 to 11 th March, 2004, and what strategies and discourses the media has constructed in order to make terrorism feel in some way like a domestic topic or, at least, closer to the community. The role of the mass media is relevant in the way in which it can determine what we understand about terrorism since the media itself proposes ways of reading and interpreting social realities. We consider that the social imaginary facilitates an exploration of the cultural appropriations of terrorism in societies such as the Quebecois and Mexican ones, and the relationship that these societies have established with their own people, in particular the kind of representations they have about themselves with respect to terrorism and the "others". By analyzing the discursive structures (frames and interpretive repertoires) in newspapers we seek to ascertain the social imaginaries that mass media (newspapers) construct on terrorism in Montreal and Guadalajara in an era that as we can see, the new world order is defined around the war against terrorism.